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Subject: RE: [dita] <text> element (#12020)



"Ogden, Jeff" <jogden@ptc.com> wrote on 08/16/2007 01:18:45 AM:
> Sounds as if <ph> should be a specialization of <text>.  We are
> probably trapped by the past, however.  

>  
> I wonder of <text> should be a specialization of anything or just a
> new addition to the base element set for topics and maps.


Actually I'm not really responding to Jeff's remarks, but to this remark from Michael from the 21 August minutes:

MP: In the past we used <keyword> to work around this issue. Would <keyword> fulfill this need?

The trouble with <keyword> is that it has semantic baggage: it imparts some magic onto its contents.  The language spec suggests that <keyword> be used for things like enumerations with key-like meanings.  (At my day job we also use <keyword> for hotspots on web pages, for URLs, and for names of XML elements.  We even boldface <keyword> by default.  Yes, we should make specializations.)  When we translate content, we are sure to tell translators that <keyword> contents mean more than just their text value, that they may need to be treated specially.

The idea of <text> is that, by definition, it contains no semantic baggage at all.  In fact, its contents could always be unwrapped from the element and (where it still obeys the content model) there would be no change in meaning.  It exists only to define reference points for ID-related things like conref and to overcome the messiness of mixed content models.

Hence why <ph> would be a closer match, but the problems with <ph> were already talked about.

--
Deborah Pickett
Information Architect, Moldflow Corporation, Melbourne
Deborah_Pickett@moldflow.com


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